COCONUT OIL!!!

Let me explain to you why I love it so much and share with you a few of my favorite recipes with coconut oil in them.

It’s been 2 years since I bought my last body lotion or facial cleanser.

A year from my last purchase of deodorant or shampoo.

For a few months now I’ve used home-made body wash as well.

Body scrub, Eye cream, face cream, diaper rash cream, all home-made.

For a long time I had made body lotions based on olive oil or almond/hazelnut oil, where the emulsifier was an emulsifying wax. At some point I have decided to try to make something that do not require any artificial ingredients.

Then I found out about coconut oil and about how wonderful it is for our bodies.

I’ve made a coconut oil-cocoa butter deodorant and I was hooked. This deodorant is the best one I have ever had in my life. (download the recipe in pdf from here).

After that I made a coconut oil eye cream which has become a face cream and a diaper rash, since then (pdf file with the recipehere).

Later I discovered something called whipped coconut oil and have decided to experiment with it. I was able to make whipped coconut oil-cocoa butter body butter and I loved it (download the recipe in pdfhere)

Just for this post I have made something special:

Ingredients:

2/3 cup coconut oil,

1/2 cup fresh brewed strong coffee, cold *

4 capsules vitamin E

* coffee can be substitute by GREEN TEA. In this case this cream is great to use as a baby body lotion.

Directions:

So, I am going to tell you from my experience how it works for me EVERY SINGLE TIME I make it.

The coconut oil HAS to be in its hard state. Preferable if you put it in the fridge for 10 minutes before starting to work with it.

Using KitchenAid whip the coconut oil like you would beat egg whites, until stiff peaks form. It might take time and you might have to put the bowl with the oil to the fridge for a few minutes once or twice.

When the oil is whipped and have a silky gloss, add 1/2 cup cold coffee. At this point you will have to cover the mixer with a towel if you don’t want to get yourself and everything around splashed.

Turn on the mixer on high-speed and whip for another 3 to 5 minutes stopping and scraping the sides of the bowl a few times. For sometime it will look like the coffee is separated from the oil and it doesn’t want to combine well.

Just keep mixing and it will all come together as a wonderful mocha coffee scented cream. When the cream is almost ready, with a sharp knife, poke a hole in vitamin E capsules and squeeze the content into the cream. Mix the mixture for a few more seconds.

Done!

With a clean spoon transfer it to a clean glass jar. Preferably if the jar and the spoon were sterilized (5 minutes in a boiling water will do).

Store the jar in the fridge. The cream will get hard like butter.

For all my home-made cosmetics I use plastic spoons to scoop it out whenever I use it.

I reuse those spoons (washing them in a dish washer).

For easy use take the jar to the bathroom every time you go to take shower or a bath. While in the bathroom it will soften and get easier to scoop out. I NEVER PUT MY BARE FINGERS INSIDE THE JAR. That way I limit the amount of bacteria that can get inside the lotion/cream and cause it to go bad quickly. As you need to realize those lotions do not have any artificial preserves!

This butter melts almost immediately on skin. It applies easily and absorbs wonderfully.

It smells like heaven, too!!!

Using COCONUT OIL in homemade cosmetics is not the only way I use it.

Here are a few of my my favorite ways to use it in foods:

– in pasta salad instead of dressing. It gives it an amazing and light coconuty flavor.

– For each thing listed above leave a separate comment under this post – THE WINNER WILL BE PICKED FROM THOSE WHO LEAVE COMMENTS, so THE MORE COMMENTS YOU LEAVE THE BIGGER IS YOUR CHANCE TO WIN

Want to know Tropical Traditions better? Here are some information about them:

Tropical Traditions is America’s source for coconut oil. Their Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil is hand crafted in small batches by family producers, and it is the highest quality coconut oil they offer. You can read more about how virgin coconut oil is different from other coconut oils on their website: What is Virgin Coconut Oil?

You can also watch the video they produced about Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil:

Tropical Traditions also carries other varieties of affordable high qualitycoconut oil. Visit their website to check on current sales, to learn about the many uses of coconut oil, and to read about all the advantages ofbuying coconut oil online. Since the FDA does not want Tropical Traditions to discuss the health benefits of coconut oil on a page where it is being sold or given away, here is the best website to read about the health benefits of coconut oil.

THE WINNER WILL BE CONTACTED within 48 HOURS after the giveaway ends.

PLEASE COMMENT WITH A VALID PROFILE (wordpress, blogger, facebook or twitter) or EMAIL ADDRESS so I can contact you after the giveaway is over.

This giveaway is open to to U.S. & Canada citizens.

Note for Canadian bloggers: Tropical Traditions is not responsible for customs or duties that Canada may charge for your sample or your readers’ prize.

I wish you all GOOD LUCK!!!

Disclaimer:

Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

If you order byclickingon any of my links and have never ordered from Tropical Traditions in the past, you will receive a free book on Virgin Coconut Oil, and I will receive a discount coupon for referring you.

This is a special post for all of you who love coconut oil and all the things you can make with it.

On Monday I’ll have something special here on my blog; I am hosting a GIVEAWAY. Thanks to Tropical Traditionsthere will be a big jar of coconut oil to win.

That blog post will have a few extra recipes for homemade body care products, as well. They are all made with coconut oil. I can’t say which one is my favorite one. I love them all. Each for something different and all of them for the coconut oil and its wonderful properties.

Just because the post with the giveaway can not have any links to an external websites (except Tropical Tradition) I am writing this post to give you all a chance to share with me and othersYOUR FAVORITE RECIPE WITH COCONUT OILin them.

As for myself I am going to share very simple recipe for every day face scrub. As some of you might know already, I do not use any commercial face cleansers, or body lotions, or shampoos, or deodorants.I went through a period in which I had tried the oil cleansing method. You can read about ithere.

I ended up with a very dry skin, actually. YES! You read it right. Washing my face with a mixture of olive oil and hazelnut oil had made my face look like I had a facial dandruff.

After trying a few different mixes I have finally settled for coffee grounds-honey-coconut oil facial scrub.

I made it fresh every other day or every two to three days. It depends on the amount of the coffee grounds I use each time.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. fresh coffee grounds (from my morning coffee)

1 Tbsp. organic honey

1 Tbsp. coconut oil

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients.

Each morning apply about 1 tsp. of the mixture on your face and rub it very gently with circular motion.

You can leave it on for a few minutes before washing off.

Note:

My face is and always has been an oily kind. For this kind of skin it is OK to use scrub every day, while for sensitive skin using scrub every day is not a good idea.

This scrub works great on the entire body. For this purpose you may want to add cinnamon and orange or lemon juice. I use it all the time and after each use my skin is so soft and moisturized that I do not feel the need for use of any lotion.

this is a picture from 2010, so you can see for how long I’ve been using this scrub. Before I’ve discovered the coconut oil, I had been using olive oil and although it was a good body scrub it was not as fantastic as it is with the coconut oil in it.

Please link-up as many recipes as you wish but, please, keep it in mind that all of them should have coconut oil as one of the ingredient!!!

P.S

For some reason my link-up tool has stopped working, so if you want to participate just post your recipe as a comment!

Since the day I made my first cream from coconut oil I am in love in it. In coconut oil, I mean. It works wonderful and it smells pretty darn good, too.

Lately I run out of my last homemade body lotion and at the same time I run out of emulsifying wax as well, so I went without any lotion for a while.

Looking for an inspiration for a new homemade cosmetic I came across Whipped Coconut Oil Body Butter. I instantly fell in love in this VERY SIMPLE recipe. So I’d decided to make it.

By that time I didn’t have KitchenAid just a simple electric hand mixer.

The recipe is simple. You pour a certain amount of coconut oil to a bowl and whip it until it looks like whipped cream.

So, the first time it took me about 30 minutes to finally give up on this project. I whipped and whipped and whipped and the consistency hadn’t changed almost at all. I thought the cocoa butter I added to the mixture was the main problem. I ended up with something that had the raw honey consistency. I used it all anyway.

A few days ago I decided to try it again. This time in my KitchenAid. I thought: “oh well, at least this time I don’t have to stand and hold it for so long. I’ll just turn in on and leave to do something else.”

And I did that.

I pour about 1/4 cup of coconut oil to the mixing bowl, turned the mixer on and went to play with my kids. After about 10 minutes It looked at it and there was almost no changes in the oil. I turned a little more white and it looked more thick.This time I’d decided not to give up so easily.

I turned the mixer off and put the bowl to the fridge for about 5 minutes. It was a really hot day when I was making it so I thought maybe the warm temperature at the house is the main problem why my oil doesn’t want to get thick.

After 5 minutes in the fridge I whipped it again for about 5 minutes. Turned it off and put it back to the fridge for 5 minutes. While the oil was in the fridge I melted 2 oz cocoa butter (over double boiler). When it melted I put it to the fridge to cool it down and I took the bowl with coconut oil out.

This time while whipping the consistency finally started to change and it got to the point where it looked like that:

And then I got very excited. FINALLY!!!

It smelled wonderful. Just like a coconut. The scent was so vivid and strong. Normally you can’t smell that coconut strong scent in regular coconut oil but when you whip it, oh… it’s just amazing. I love it!!!

At this point I took the cocoa butter from the fridge, it was cold but not hard, it had the consistency of honey, and I added it to the bowl with whipped coconut oil.

Then I added about 6 capsules of vitamin E and a few drops of grapefruit essential oil and whipped it for additional 5 minutes.

This is what I ended up with: smooth and silky whipped cream that smelled like coconut.

The thing is that I do store it in the fridge and at this point it’s hardened. It didn’t stay soft and silky. I didn’t want to keep it in room temperature because I am afraid it will melt in this hot weather we’ve got here.

Now it has the consistency more like a hard butter. It’s not REALLY hard but I need a spoon or a knife to scoop it out from the jar. Whenever I take a shower I take that jar with me so it gets softer in the moist and hot bathroom environment and after that it’s easier to scoop it out.

It’s easy to apply on my body because as soon as it touches the skin it melts beautifully and it’s absorbs really good, too.

So far I think, I have found my second favorite recipe for body lotion🙂

Months ago I came across a post from where I found out that it is good to wash your face with oil(s). Yes, THE oils that you cook with. I was sceptic at the beginning so I started reading more about it just from a curiosity. I am not going to re-write here what I read on those many blogs I have found, and you would be surprised how many people actually do it (use oil to wash their faces with). Instead, if you’re interested, I’m posting links to a few of those posts I think are filled with good information about OCM (Oil-Cleansing Method) on the bottom of my post (look at related articles).

I’ve decided to try it.

I do have an oily skin and almost every day I had to wash it with water a few times a day in order to get rid of that oily shining.

I mixed my first batch of oils about two months ago using:

3 tsp Olive Oil

9 Tsp Hazelnut Oil

I keep it in a bottle of my old store-bought cleanser in the bathroom.

I’m almost out of my first batch but, for sure, there will be another one. I really like the way my skin feels and looks. I do not have to wash my face with water every few hours in order to stop shining🙂

In my entire life I might have used one or two face creams but for the last few years I used non. Using the OCM has made my skin REALLY dry in some areas. From what I read I know that it happens when you chose a bad mix of oils for your skin or the proportions are not right. Next time I’m going to use more olive oil and less of the second oil (not sure yet which one I’m going to use).

So far to get rid of that dry patches on my skin I’ve decided to make my own face cream that would help me but not make my skin oily again.

I choose to use coconut oil. This oil is very moisturaizing and it suppose to be one of the best to use on your skin. I bought mine in our local store for $6 (14 oz.). I used it before to make deodorant and there is still plenty left in the jar.

For the face cream I used only 1.5 oz. I didn’t want to make a whole lot in case if it turned out bad and in addition I had a very small jar (2.3 oz) kept after my last store-bought face cream cleanser.

For the cream I used:

1.5 oz coconut oil

2 pills of vitamin C (crushed) *

3 capsules vitamin E

This cream is super easy to make. Coconut oil melts when it touches the skin but to dissolve the vitamin C and E in it I had to melt it in a double boiler. It took only a few minutes for the oil to change its consistency. It didn’t even have the time get warm. I powdered 2 pills of vitamin C and mixed it to the oil. I made sure that the oil is cold and then I mixed in the vitamin E (poked a whole with a sharp knife in every capsule and squeezed the liquid out).

* When I was making this cream the temperature in my kitchen was too warm for the coconut oil to set to its natural consistency so I put it in the fridge for 5 minutes. After I took it out I’d noticed that most of the powdered vitamin C is on the bottom of the jar. I left the cream to sit on my counter for 10 minutes until it became very soft and almost melted again. After that I stirred it really good with a toothpick and put it back to the fridge for one minute. I took it out, gave a good stir and put it back to the fridge again. I repeated it for a several times. To get rid of that problem I’m going to get a liquid vitamin C for my next batch.

This is what I ended up with. Very soft and easy to put on the skin cream.

When the temperature is below 75 F this cream won’t melt, so you can keep in the bathroom, for example.

When the temperature reaches above 75 F this cream will melt so it is better to keep it in the fridge. At this point it will get hard. It is still easy to apply and absorbs quickly.

to read more about it check out “related articles” on the bottom of this post

Since that day I barely would use a deodorant but that isn’t working for me. At the same time I’m not willing to pay $7 for an 2.5 oz. of organic deodorant.

So, while still using my old deodorant I’ve looked for homemade deodorants on Internet. I have pinned a few recipes I found. Finally, when the time to make it had come, I looked at all of them. In almost all cases I lacked one or two ingredients. The easiest recipe made of ingredients I already had in my pantry was from How About Orange. Having that recipe and the one from Angry Chicken blog as a base I came up with something that would, kind of, combine both.

This is what I ended up with:

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. cocoa butter

2 Tbsp. coconut oil

2 oz. baking soda

1.5 oz arrowroot (or corn starch)

4 capsules vitamin E

10 drops essential oil (your choice)

Directions:

Melt cocoa butter with coconut oil over double bath until combined and there is no cocoa butter pieces remaining and it looks like that:

Wait until the mixture is cool and add baking soda, arrowroot, essential oil. Poke a small hole in vitamines E capsules and squeeze the content to the mixture. Mix it well until everything is well combined.

At this point the mixture won’t be very thick. It will get there, don’t worry. You need to stir it from time to time and, if you inpatient like me, put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.

In my case, after those 10 minutes in the fridge, my mixture got very hard. Definitely it wasn’t a consistency I was hoping for. I let it sit in a room temperature for 10 minutes and after that it got soft again, a little bit too soft. I figured it out that the temperature in my kitchen (as I was baking and cooking at the same time) might be to high for the coconut oil to get thick again. So I moved the jar to my bathroom where the temperature is much lower. That did the trick. My deodorant set perfectly. The consistency is thick-soft. I can use my finger to apply it on the skin without any problems.

To store it I used jar after Fleischmann’s dry yeast (4 oz.). From this recipe I filled that jar to about 3/4.

Not bad!

So far I really like it. It works way better than Tom’s and I use only tiny bit on my skin. It seems like that jar will last for a long long time.

I’ve been using it for a few days now and I have to say that the results are beyond my expectations. It smells nice. It’s safe to use. It’s cheap and fast to make and IT REALLY WORKS!!!

In our house there is never lack of oranges, lemons and grapefruits. Not only that I like to eat them (yes, I like to eat lemons!) but I really enjoy the smell of citrus peels. So many times I’ve left cut peels on the kitchen counter just to let that beautiful scent to spread all around the kitchen. It works like air freshener. I know that many people make their own essential oils using citrus peels. I’ve never tired it but I’m planning to after I run out of my recent supplies.

I do use my citrus peels in cooking and baking. Yesterday I made raspberry sandwich cookies with lemon and orange zest.

My husband wasn’t a big fan of the raspberry jam inside so I left a few plain cookies just for him. He tried one with marshmallow topping but at the end he wanted to eat them just plain. (Recipe on the end of this post)

Speaking about baking. This is my new scar which is aching sooo bad… .

My new scar added to collection. ugh.

Despite my terrible cold (or whatever virus I’ve have for the last week or more) I managed today to make a new supplies of a cut and preserved in sugar grapefruit zest. I learned it from my mom who always would make it before the Christmas holiday season as she always used a lot of orange zest in her Christmas baking. I like it so much that I always keep a jar of ready to use zest in my fridge, no matter what season of the year it is. She would always use only orange zest, but I’ve learned that grapefruit and lemon is great for use as well.

So after I ate my grapefruit for breakfast the funny part started:

Making it you need to remember to wash the skin really good. The best way is to sprinkle baking soda over the fruit and scrub it. Then you need to get rid of the white part of the peel as much as you can because it’s very bitter. Than, you need to cut your peels with a sharp knife in a tiny pieces.

Transfer it to a small glass jar, sprinkle it with a teaspoon (or two) of white sugar. Shake it well, cover and store in the fridge for months. If you have new peel you can just add it to the old one as a new layer. Every time you put some new peels you need to remember to add a teaspoon of sugar and shake it.

Almost empty jar with orange zest that I used making raspberry cookies yesterday!

It’s ready to use anytime you need it: for cakes, cookies, salads, or to flavor meat (yep, it’s really good with meat, just don’t overuse it).

You can not only use it for cooking and baking but in body scrubs as well. Today I made a new batch and it smells sooo heavenly.

This is my recipe:

1/2 cup while sugar,

1/2 cup packed brown sugar,

fresh squeezed juice from half lemon,

fresh squeezed juice from two parts of grapefruit,

1 tablespoon olive oil,

1 tablespoon preserved in sugar orange zest,

10 drops (each) essential oils grapefruit and orange sweet.

If the mixture is too wet just keep adding the sugar.

In the meantime my daughter was doing her stuff which normaly means sneaking behing my back and doing what she shouldn’t be doing:

Do you see that guilty look on her face… She knows she can’t take things off of the caunter but she always does it anyway. I bet you noticed those WAY TOO BIG socks. Yes, those are mine but she loves to wear them as well as many of my clothes.

I didn’t have any lemon zest to photograph today as I do not use it as much as grapefruit and orange but I found a website with22 ways of how to use Lemon. You might want to check it out.

I used it yesterday to make my cookies and last time when I made granola.

Speaking about cookies.

As I promised this is the recipe:

Ingredients:

12 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup plus 1 Tbsp. white sugar

1 Tbsp. lemon zest (grated or made as I make it)

1 Tbsp. orange zest

1 large egg

1/4 tsp. salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup raspberry jam

Directions:

1. Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter until light, 2 minutes. Beat in 2/3 cup sugar, zests, then egg and salt. Beat in flour 1 cup at a time. Divide dough in half and form into 2 disks. Wrap in plastic foil (or parchment paper) and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 375 F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. On a floured surface roll out a disk to 1/4-inch thickness. In my case those disks started to crack and stick to the surface so I used more flour for the surface and I used my palm of my hand to press the dough until it reached the right thickness. Cut out cookies with a 2 1/2 -inch cutter.I used my vitamins bottle cap.Placed cut out cookies 1/2 inch apart on sheets. Gather dough scraps, reroll and cut more cookies. Sprinkle cookies with sugar. Repeat with remaining dough disk.

3. Bake cookies until golden around edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Let the cookies to cool then transfer to racks or on the plate.

So, those are mine ideas how to use citrus zest. I was thinking about using it when making candles but making candles is on my list-to-do. Never made them before but really want to try. Someday… someday🙂

I never thought I will go that way, but so far I really like it, and I’m planning to do much more. Since I started making body lotions I’ve read dozens of websites and articles about how toxic are the ingredients that cosmetic companies use in their produce. Body lotions, shampoos, conditioners, body washes…, you name it… it’s everywhere. Many of those ingredients are carcinogens, and not only… Many are not even listed on the labels.

These days I make my own facial cleansers, body lotions, body scrubs and I practice the “no poo” method of washing my hair. I’m totally satisfied and I’m planning to do the same with our daughter. After I read an article that cancer-causing chemicals were discovered in Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo I laughed (yes, I did… ups). If you look at the labels of almost any (baby or not) body lotion, body wash, shampoo, toothpaste or even deodorants you’ll see a few ingredients that are on the list of carcinogens. It doesn’t have to be J&J… and that fact is known for years. In 2009 L’Oreal was listed as one of 100 most sustainable companies and Burts Bees wasn’t. Where the first one uses chemicals in their personal care produce and they do tests on animals and the second one does not. Oh well, it doesn’t do tests on animals but I saw a few ingredients on their labels that shouldn’t be there, but still… .

It’s all about the money and we all go for it.

Many people just don’t care. I didn’t. I used to buy without using my brain… only eyes and nose, and listening to what commercials would say and show.

Today I think first, and it’s obvious to me that PAYING for something that’s toxic and putting it on my body it’s suicidal and simply stupid.

Yes, I still use commercial body wash and deodorant (without aluminum) but it’s not going to be for too much longer. I’m planning to switch to glycerin based soaps and homemade deodorants.

The same is with all kinds of household cleansers. I don’t remember when I bought them for the last time. A year ago…?! For most of the time I use vinegar (link will take you to 131 uses for Vinegar) and baking soda (40 uses for baking soda) and essential oils.

A few months ago I started making my own laundry detergent…, and this post was planned to be only about it…

There is plenty of tutorials online how to make your own “almost everything”. The most useful place to look for is Pinterest, I think. This is mine homemade beauty products board and it’s growing🙂 Feel free to follow me or let me know about great tutorial for homemade stuff so I can add it to my boards.

Anyway, this is my recipe for homemade laundry detergent:

1/3 bar of soap, (The most typical type of soap to use is Fels Naptha. It is an old-fashioned type of soap usually found in the laundry aisle. The other options for soap are Ivory or another brand called, Zote. Any of these will work)

½ cup washing soda (I’ve heard that’s easy to get at pool supplies store or in Wal-Mart. I make my own.)

½ cup borax powder (20 Mule Team)

and a small bucket, about 2 gallon size

I found my soap in Home Depot ($0.99 per soap)

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan.

Add 6 cups of water and heat it until the soap melts.

Add the washing soda and the borax and stir it until it is dissolved. Remove from heat.

Add 4 cups of hot water to your bucket. Now add your soap mixture. Stir it well. Add 1 gallon and 6 cups of hot water. Stir now and then until the mixture cools down. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will become a gel.

Use 1/2 cup per load.

From my experience I know that this detergent won’t clean heave stains. It’s not a bleach. The way I deal with it is simple. Before I wash or even right after the stain appear (after my daughter spill something on her cloths) I treat it with apple cider vinegar and baking soda. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Give it a quick wash in hands (for bigger and more stubborn stains I use some kind of brush) and wash it as usual with the rest of the clothes. It works great so far.

For whites I use natural bleach – lemons or lemon juice. For my face cloths and kitchen towels I normally fill a pot with water and add thinly sliced fresh lemon.

Bring the water with lemons to a boil. Turn off heat, add my towels and clothes, and let it to soak for an hour or even longer.

For some it might look like it’s a pain in the ass to mess with all that stuff and I totally get it. It’s actually not that hard or time taking. If you get to a routine it’s really easy.

I know that green and sustainable living is much more, but Rome wasn’t built in a day… . We do what we can afford these days hoping that in the future we will be able to do much more in our life to make it more green and sustainable.

Here I am… Again with my coffee body lotion. I love this lotion so much that I think I will never stop making it. The last few times I’ve used cocoa butter with it, and it’s even better that my “only coffee” lotions.

When the oil-wax-cocoa butter mixture is melted mix it in a glass jar with 1 1/2 cup of hot coffee. Both liquids need to be hot.

Use a blender to do that if you don’t want to spent the next hour stirring the mixture every 5 minutes. It will cool down and thicken much faster but you will have more to clean. I always mix the lotion in the same jar in which I store it. It’s very convenient for me.

If you choose the way I make it (without blender) you need to stir it every few minutes because the coffee is separating from the rest of the mixture on the bottom of the jar…

…and it looks just like on the picture below:

When the mixture is almost cold you can add essential oils (or fragrance oils). For more coffee smell and caffeine properties you can add coffee essential oil. In my case I added about 15 drops of sweet orange, 15 drops of grapefruit essential oils and 10 drops amber rose fragrance oil (for more sweet smell).

in my lotions I never forget to add some vitamin E. Poke it with a sharp knife and squeeze the liquid out. Use as many as you wish.

Stir it well with a spoon and enjoy:

For those who don’t like coffee or coffee smell or just don’t want to use coffee (for another reason): you can brew 1 1/2 cups of green, mint, peppermint tea or just use plain hot water. In my previous lotions I’ve used fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. It worked great, too.

You can get creative and mix different liquids but do not use more than 1 1/2 cup of that mixture all together. The lotion won’t get creamy and thick enough. I’ve done that before😦

ah… and keep in the fridge!

* since I started making and using lotions with cocoa butter in them I noticed my stretching marks got smaller and almost invisible!!!

I got up today and felt like I want to make some granola for snacking later. I started gathering all the ingredients together on the kitchen counter and when I looked at the oatmeal I remembered that I have never posted pictures and recipe for my oatmeal cocoa butter honey milk lotion.

I’m almost out so I couldn’t taka any decent picture with the lotion inside the jar. It lasted for about 3 weeks and there is about one week more left in the jar. You have to know that I use it a few times a day just because I made too much and I don’t want it to go to waste.

With milk and raw honey and nothing to preserve it (not counting keeping it the fridge and a bit of the lemon juice) I know that my lotion wouldn’t be good after 2 months. It is how it works with homemade lotions.

Next time I’m going to use just half of the amount of the ingredients so I don’t have to worry about it going bad.

I love how simple it is to make and how safe it is even for my kiddo who likes to try (means eat) my lotions from time to time.

I don’t mean she eats it like a regular food😉

Every time she sees me putting it on she wants me to put it on her, too. Of course whenever I put it on her she licks a little bit of it. At least I feel comfortable with her doing so. I wouldn’t if that was a commercially bought lotion.

Now if you interested in the recipe.

Things You’ll Need:

2 tbsp. oatmeal

2 tbsp. citric acid (I used fresh lemon juice)

1 tbsp. honey

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup almond or hazelnut oil or coconut or olive oil (or mix of few of those)

1 oz. cocoa butter

1 oz. emulsifying wax (CAN NOT BE SUBSTITUTED WITH BEES WAX)

Soak the oatmeal in 1/2 cup of water overnight. Blend in the food processor until smooth.

Heat the milk in a pot. Do not boil. Remove from stove and transfer it to a glass jar.

In different pot, over medium low temperature melt the cocoa butter, wax and honey (over double bath) with the choice of your oil until fully dissolved, stirring continuously. Do not let the mixture reach a boil.

Pour the melted oil mixture slowly into the glass jar with milk and water, stirring constantly until the two mixtures are combined. Add the citric acid. Add blended oatmeal. Stir vigorously with sterilized spoon. The mixture will become more creamy while cooling down. It will take about an hour. Don’t forget to stir the mixture every 5 to 10 minutes with the spoon until completely cold.

Store it in the refrigerator.

If you want when the mixture cools down you can add vitamin E and your choice of essential oils.

Enjoy!

One more think:

all the homemade lotions don’t have strong preserving and anti-bacterial ingredients, so it is very important to avoid the bacteria getting inside the jar where you keep your lotion. I NEVER touch it with my hands/fingers. I always use a clean plastic spoon (which I re-use washing them in dish washer after each use) to scoop out the needed amount of lotion.

Keeping it in a cool, dark place as well stretches the shelf life – I keep mine in the fridge.

I got very happy when I saw on Rebbeca’s Soap Deli News that she is talking about my coffee body lotion. Thanks a lot! It made me even happier when I saw my crochet camera strap cover being featured at J&M Eye Candy.

Back to my coffee lotion.

I just ran out of it and yesterday I made new jar. This time with cocoa butter and grapefruit juice (fresh squeezed) !

To those who made it, or want to try to make it – forget about my previous recipes, because I just made THE BEST COFFEE COCOA BUTTER (with grapefruit juice) body lotion EVER!!!!!!

Actually, I almost didn’t make it, or should say I almost failed to make it. It was my first time I was making lotion with cocoa butter. It didn’t want to thicken. I had to fix it and come up with new measurements. Now, proudly I can share it with you.

The directions along with the basic recipe how to make it step by step is here.

Yesterday I made a few changes that made all the difference. I added:

3 tbs of cocoa butter and I melted it all together with e. wax and almond oil over double bath,

instead of using 1 1/2 cup of coffee I used 1 1/4 cup plus 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice (NO, THIS LOTION IS NOT STICKY because of that juice. It’s perfectly smooth and very creamy! )

I added the juice to the mixture after it cooled down a little, all together with vitamin E, and essential/fragrance oils (grapefruit essential oil and amber rose fragrance)

This lotion is AMAZING! After you use it you won’t need any perfumes! Seriously. It smells a little bit like coffee (not too much though) but the cocoa butter added delicate sweet scent to it, and it’s much better than my previous lotions. My skin is soooooo soft!

WHY GRAPEFRUIT JUICE?

Grapefruits are high in the carotenoid phytonutrient lycopene. Lycopene provides your skin with strong antioxidant protection against environmental damage. Lycopene has the highest capacity to help fight oxygen free radicals among the common dietary carotenoids. Lycopene also strengthens skin and helps to prevent wrinkles by enhancing its ability to produce collagen and reducing DNA damage.Raw grapefruit contains the skin-cleansing enzyme, bromelain. This enzyme is found in the peel. Try rubbing the inside of the peel against your face as a cleanser. Bromelain also helps to reduce inflammation. Rubbing the peel over itchy inflamed skin, psoriasis or mosquito bites can help to alleviate the itching. Grapefruit drops are also available that will provide the same benefits when applied to your skin.Grapefruit stimulates the circulation, tightens the skin and diminishes the cellulite.

WHY COFFEE?

One of the most beneficial ingredients in coffee is its caffeine. Just as drinking coffee wakes up your nervous system, it has also been shown to “wake up” the skin. Many anti-aging creams and moisturizers contain caffeine as an active ingredient for its anti-inflammatory qualities. Researchers at the Seoul National University reported in a 1981 study that caffeine reduces inflammation almost as well as aspirin. Coffee has also been added to many body scrubs to diminish the appearance of cellulite. In a 2007 study at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, researchers reported that topical creams containing caffeine decreased hip diameter in almost 70 percent of the subjects over one month.

Overall, use of skin care products containing caffeine will reduce and prevent inflammation and redness, leaving you with a beautiful, even skin tone.

Those who had or have used PALMER’s cocoa butter formula know how good it is for you skin. Especially when you’re pregnant, or after being pregnant. It has many more benefits.

If you want to read about cocoa butter more go here, or here, and great info here.

Yesterday I went even further using my coffee. Instead of throwing out those used coffee grounds I made coffee sugar body scrub.

My recipe calls for:

whatever coffee grounds you’ve got left (in this case it was about 3/4 cup),

about 3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup fresh grapefruit juice (you can add olive oil instead)

This body scrub is very messy!!!

Used coffee filter went straight to my husband’s worm’s. YES, he keeps worms on our patio. It looks pretty gross. Mh… tell me more about it but, despite that look it’s nothing more than our food waste, coffee grounds, used tea bags, dirt from vacuum cleaner and shredded paper. The dark brownish matter is the soil… almost ready to be used. Few more weeks and we will be using it in our pots🙂

This time I went totally green making this lotion 🙂 I’m happy about that! As well, my husband should be proud of me that I take such a good care of his worms. We used to fight about a few things that go along with having your own worm composting set up. A few months ago we compromised to a few things and it works since. It works really good! I feed his worms, he takes care of the rest of it. He acutally takes a very good care of it.